China announced on Thursday (December 21) that it would ban the export of a range of technologies for extracting and separating strategic metals such as rare earths, in an effort to maintain China's dominance in rare earth technology.
According to the announcement of the Ministry of Commerce of China, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued the "Catalogue of China's Prohibited Export Restricted Export Techniques" on Thursday, a total of 24 categories of export are prohibited and 110 categories are restricted from export. The announcement is effective from the date of publication.
The prohibited export items include a "rare earth refining, processing and utilization technology", and the control points are: rare earth extraction and separation process technology;Production technology of rare earth metals and alloy materials;Preparation technology of samarium cobalt, NdFeB and cerium magnets;Preparation technology of rare earth calcium borate oxygen.
The document shows that the implementation of the export ban is mainly to "safeguard the public interest or public morality". It is a technology that is prohibited from being exported and shall not be exported;Technologies that are restricted from export shall be subject to license management and shall not be exported without permission.
According to Reuters and AFP, rare earths are strategic metals used to make mobile phone chips, LCD screens, magnets and other technology products, and China is the world's largest rare earth processor, accounting for 90% of the world's smelting output. Western rare earth companies can only be deterred by the technical complexity and pollution problems of rare earth refining, processing and utilization.
While Western countries have tried to start their own rare earth processing operations, the ban is expected to have the greatest impact on the production of heavy rare earths. Heavy rare earths are used in electric vehicle engines, medical equipment and equipment, and China has a near monopoly on smelting in these fields.
Bloomberg said the new rules would not affect the export of rare earth products themselves, but could be intended to thwart efforts to develop the rare earth industry outside of China.